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Dessert

Maryland Beaten Biscuit

A biscuit made from flour, salt, milk, butter, and water, beaten until stiff and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Mary Ronald · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Maryland Beaten Biscuit

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Add a teaspoonful of salt and a tablespoonful of butter to a quart of flour and rub them together.

  2. Add a cupful of milk, and, if necessary, a little water, making a stiff dough.

Beat the dough

  1. Place the dough on a firm table or block.

  2. Beat it with a mallet or rolling-pin for a full half an hour, or until it becomes brittle.

Shape and bake

  1. Spread it half an inch thick.

  2. Cut it into small circles.

  3. Prick each one with a fork.

  4. Bake them in a hot oven about twenty minutes.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

604Calories
21 gProtein
9 gFat
107 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 3 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Mary Ronald. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures. See the original page.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the structure of the dough that holds the biscuit together.
Butter (in the method)
Adds fat that tenderises the dough and softens its texture.
Milk
Provides the moisture that hydrates the flour into a stiff dough.

The step that matters

Beat the dough for the full half hour. Beating works the gluten in the flour until the dough becomes smooth and brittle, which gives the baked biscuit its firm, crisp, layered texture. Stopping early leaves the biscuit dense and less crisp.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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